Story Seeds: Apply Mokuton Liberally
by Balthanon
Summary: Buried seeds of stories untold, apply mokuton for maximum growth and endurance. These are the beginnings and fragments (typically full chapters) of Naruto stories that I have started, but will likely not be doing anything else with for awhile. Generally speaking, I intend to pursue these at some point though the time and order is still up in the air.
1. Tsunade the Younger

**Author's Note:**

This will be a repository of Naruto story concepts that I enjoy enough to have started, but aren't going to be worked on actively for awhile. One shots and anything that I think I'm going to work on in the near future (or for which I have 2 or more chapters) will typically be published on their own. I do plan to pick up these stories eventually and move them out of here, they just aren't on the active docket for the time being.

* * *

 **Tsunade the Younger**

 _Chapter 1: Avoiding the Hokage Hat_

Looking up from where she was striding along behind Jiraiya, Tsunade groaned to herself as she thought again about the stupid promise that she had made to her team mate. She wasn't sure what she had been thinking, honestly.

Yes, the boy had impressed her and reminded her of Dan and Nawraki and she didn't regret turning down Orochimaru. Naruto deserved her necklace too. She wasn't quite sure how the high of success and feeling like a ninja again for the first time in a couple decades had translated into "I will sacrifice the remainder of my life to the hassles and headaches of being Hokage" though.

Second thoughts didn't begin to describe it.

Honestly, if Jiraiya could turn down the position, she didn't see why she automatically had to take it. At a minimum, they should have to have a contest to see who got strapped to the chair until Minato's kid was ready to take the hat. She carefully emphasized the word "contest" in her head, staying well away from "bet", "wager", or anything related to gambling. That was what had gotten her into this position in the first place.

Unfortunately, while she had been drinking her way through Fire country for the past decade, her teammate had been an active duty ninja. And even at her best, Jiraiya tended to beat her nine times out of ten, just as she had Orochimaru.

As she noticed a commotion ahead, she started paying attention to her surroundings again, leaving the thoughts to stew in the back of her mind. Noting the road had begun passing through a small village, the buildings on either side not particularly well-kept, but clean enough, she paused since her traveling companions had as well.

Jiraiya and Naruto were standing outside of what appeared to be the local tavern, the Toad Sannin arguing that they had traveled long enough and deserved a break for the day. She was sure it had nothing to do with the woman leaning out a window on the second floor to entice men. Still, any delay in her impending doom was welcome...

Smiling, she walked up to the pair and added her piece. "Why don't we vote on it?" she asked, standing near the boy so he would think that she was planning to take his side.

Apparently she didn't quite look as innocent and trustworthy as she hoped though, because Naruto gave her a suspicious glance. This in turn became a crafty grin of his own though, and she wondered what the boy was up to.

"Alright," he said, "I get to pick the order though."

Raising an eyebrow, she gestured for the boy to go ahead, and Jiraiya seemed to have no issues with that either.

"I'll go first, then Ero-sennin, then Tsunade-baa-chan, then Shizune-nee-chan, and Ton Ton can be the deciding vote."

Though she still chuckled at Jiraiya's new title, her own epithet got the boy a smack on the head. Still, she had no real problems with that so she indicated her agreement and waited on the boy to vote.

Moment's later, a puff of smoke obscured Naruto for a moment, and then he was a she with a rather amazing example of Henge even she couldn't see through. As the now bouncy, beautiful young woman crowded up to her teammate and purred, "I vote we move on, don't you agree, Jiraiya-chan?" she nearly gaped at the abrupt change from innocent little boy to blonde seductress.

Her reaction was nothing compared to Jiraiya though as he gave a thumbs up, then keeled over backwards, his nostrils spurting blood.

"Hurray!" Naruto exclaimed, bouncing once with positively disturbing results- particularly as the strategically placed bits of smoke were dissipating as she watched. Growling, Tsunade raised a hand and pounded the genin on general principle and the boy "poofed" back into his normal self before giving her a raspberry.

"I vote we stay," she said, but she didn't really expect to carry the day now and as she expected, Shizune gave her an apologetic smile then voted to move on. Ton Ton at least knew where her loyalties lay though, and voted with her.

As they moved away from the tavern, however, she thought for a moment, then turned to Naruto, who was panting under the load of Jiraiya. Further punishment for his little trick. "Naruto... that was a very impressive henge. I don't think I've ever seen better from a genin." In truth, she wasn't sure she had ever seen better from a jounin- the closest she had ever seen was during a trip to the Land of Demons, when she was nearly caught by a ninja who used the Shadow Mirror Body Changing Method and that one was actually a permanent modification of the body.

"That wasn't a henge, that was my super-duper Kage-killer move- Sexy no Jutsu!" The boy grinned up at her. "It was the very first jutsu I ever made for myself. Guaranteed effective on perverts, though I guess it won't work on you when you're Hokage, huh?"

"Don't count on it, brat," she replied absently, thinking to herself. It was typically possible to sense the chakra emissions from a henge, particularly when you interacted with it via touch. Yet she hadn't felt a whisper of chakra when she dispelled the foolish display. "...so how is it different than a normal henge?"

Naruto paused at this, apparently stuck, then said, "Well, it's way easier, for one! It's not nearly as fiddly as most ninjutsu, especially after you're done with the first bits."

Tsunade raised an eyebrow at this, trying to process the explanation and turn it into something approaching actual chakra theory. The boy was a jinchuriki, she knew that much despite having left before his birth. And if he had inherited the Uzumaki chakra, he likely had more chakra than most. So fiddly might simply mean larger chakra requirements, so it didn't require quite the finesse or control of the typical henge. There was obviously still some element of concentration involved as well.

A thought was beginning to percolate through her mind based on the little demonstration as Naruto expanded on his explanation with such exacting terms as "realer", "not as leaky", and "maybe, uhh, kinda you, but not". It was when he finally ended up comparing it to aspects of the kage bunshin, however, that her eyes widened and things started to really click. It was at that point that she started really probing with some additional questions of her own.

While her own transformation technique maintaining her age was nearly impenetrable, it was still at its core the basic technique every ninja was taught before they even graduated- someone at Jiraiya's level would at least be subconsciously aware of the chakra emissions even at a distance. Even with the refinements that she had introduced to supply the power and concentration for the technique through her Strength of a Hundred Seal, they were still there.

Naruto, however, had somehow managed to put together a technique that essentially captured or contained all of the chakra that was being used. It would take some time to fully understand, but if she had to guess, he had essentially created a shell around himself that was recycling all of the chakra that he used in powering the technique. At least she assumed that it was recycling, otherwise you would probably explode based on her estimates of the power being cycled through the technique.

If some of the comparisons he was making to the kage bunshin were correct... it was no wonder he picked that technique up so easily. He had already developed half of the associated chakra manipulations used in making it work for a perverted jutsu intended to be used on Sensei of all people. She wondered absently if her teacher or Jiraiya really understood exactly why the technique was so effective on them. She glanced ahead to her team mate, who was chatting amiably with Shizune in that friendly way he had, and the thought that had been percolating since the beginning of the conversation suddenly surfaced.

She was almost certain that Jiraiya didn't quite appreciate the effect that this was having subconsciously. Her team mate was smart, but he wasn't book smart. Not really. There was a certain gut feeling to his approach to being a ninja that was in some ways more effective. And in others, left him vulnerable to his own preconceptions.

Without those tell tale chakra emissions, Jiraiya's senses were telling him that what he was seeing was real. At the same time, however, his mind was telling him that it wasn't- this was safe, nothing but a henge. It played directly upon the man's basest perversions. And if she could learn it and steel herself to actually use it during a battle with Jiraiya... she might well win.

It was worth a shot- while he was a goofball, Jiraiya really would be the better Hokage. She might have the lineage, but he had stayed truer to Konoha than she ever had- handing over his intelligence network would be difficult, but she was sure it could be done. She would even stick around Konoha, take up some of the slack. This was certainly better for the village as a whole though.

Truthfully, it was possible that just stripping in the middle of battle alone would do the job- but she wasn't about to take the chance of embarrassing herself like that without it being a sure thing. That conflict between his gut and his head were key. She would learn the Sexy no Jutsu, use it on her teammate, and free hers- err, ensure that the right person became Hokage.

* * *

It was a nearly two week trip back to Konoha, so she had perhaps a week to convince Naruto to teach her his technique, learn it, convince Jiraiya to accept her "contest", and then win and force him into the role he had pidgeon-holed her into. Though it needn't be in that order. She might as well start with the truly critical piece, which was convincing her teammate to make a w-take her up on her "contest".

They had marched for most of the day and had luckily reached another town, this one slightly more affluent with more stone buildings and a hot spring- it was called Hot Water Village, in fact. That should make her task a bit easier as Naruto's "Ero-sennin" could certainly be enticed with a bit of his "research".

Planning out her strategy as they approached the turn-off, she made her pitch to the group first.

"Let's take some time to rest, there's a village with a nice hot spring just off the road."

As expected, Naruto protested immediately under henge, this time with Jiraiya's support... until she acted before the brat could pull out his big guns.

"And I've even heard they have mixed bathing."

Turning away from Naruto, Jiraiya grinned, well, leered, at Tsunade and immediately changed his vote. Combined with her own and Ton-Ton's, the hot spring carried the day and the group immediately headed up the path.

* * *

Her plan called for Jiraiya to stew for awhile, so she passed a little time in the casino, her luck just poor enough to reassure her.

Upon returning to the hotel, she pawed through her clothing with no little disgust. She had never really gone the "seductress" route in her training and had little or nothing to make Jiraiya let down his guard. Perhaps she should just beat him into it after all...

This was perhaps the only thing she expected her perverted team mate to really fight her on though. That and anything which really threatened Konoha. Which this didn't, of course.

Reaching the bottom of her chest, she blinked. Pulling out the outfits she had found, she absently wondered why she even had examples of her genin and chunin uniforms. The genin uniform... it reminded her of better times, before all the loss, the deaths. Before she knew what being a ninja was really about. Placing it on the bed, she smoothed the summer green fabric with the rose trim and smiled nostalgically. Holding up the mesh shirt, she placed it against her chest and grimaced. There was no way she was getting this on without a henge and she didn't think that would help much.

Her eyes moved over to the larger outfit she had worn as a chunin though. That, she thought, had potential.

Eyeing herself in the mirror after she had finally squeezed into the outfit, Tsunade decided that the faint flush of red in her cheeks was probably from the alcohol she had earlier. Nothing at all to do with the nearly painted on mesh undershirt and white top that could barely contain her breasts or the miniskirt that revealed those weren't the only thing that had grown since she was a teenager.

Barely avoiding ripping the clothes, she tore them off and tossed them back in her chest. Who was she kidding, she'd drink Jiraiya into the ground and then get him to give her the fight she was looking for tonight. No need for anything special.

* * *

"You... Yours sure that you didn't already agree?" Jiraiya squinted at her suspiciously, slurring his question to the point that she barely understood it in her own inebriated state. "To the... the thing... that... with Sensei, Naruto."

Tsunade sneered carefully, then said, "Does that-" She hiccuped and peered down at her glass reproachfully. "-that sound, like me?"

"Nooo..." The white haired man sounded sad suddenly. "Not anymore. All... alright, you've got a deal, Princess. We fight for it, tom-"

"A week from today," Tsunade interupted, only barely keeping the crafty smile off of her face. The additional reminders of the past and better times helped. Jiraiya just nodded, but the motion was enough to capsize him and he plunged forward into the hot spring they were sitting beside with a veritable hill of sake carafes around them.

Lifting the Toad Sage's head out of the water, Tsunade moved a single finger back and forth in front of the man's eyes and watched as they tracked it. Kind of. Her own eyes actually crossed slightly following her finger and she swayed dizzily. Good enough though, still counted. She pulled back and let go of Jiraiya, blinking in some surprise as he rocketed over the wall of the bathhouse. Oh well, he'd survive.

She pulled herself further away from the edge of the spring and then closed her eyes gratefully, passing out moments later.

* * *

Convincing Naruto to train her proved more problematic. The boy was convinced she was trying to develop a counter to the ability to stop him from using it in the future. He had her most valuable posession, her promise to heal his friends and sensei, and wouldn't accept her vouchers despite her insistence that she was good for it, so she didn't have much to bargain with. Between being in that incredibly annoying position and having to avoid a scowling and disgusted Jiraiya so he couldn't back out of their b- deal, it was not shaping up to be a particularly relaxing hot spring vacation.

Eventually, it ended up requiring an intervention by Shizune and Ton-Ton. Without being willing to say what exactly was at stake, mainly because Tsunade had threatened to display exactly how inventive a medic-nin could really be if he told anyone she was trying to learn his Sexy Technique, he was forced to finally stop being a stubborn little brat and make some concessions.

Tsunade on the other hand, had made some promises that could definitely come back to bite her on the ass if this didn't work out and she actually had the leverage of the Hokage's hat to follow through on them.

* * *

Only a few days away from Konoha, Tsunade and Jiraiya faced off with serious expressions. After she had gotten the agreement out of her old team mate, he had been pressing to make the village as quickly as possible. The delays introduced by the hot spring trip had been sufficient though and she now had the tools that she needed to win.

Naruto's technique was surprisingly elegant, but not something most genin or even chunin would be able to handle. It required a tremendous amount of chakra to get going. The power requirements to kick it off were, in fact, beyond even her without the Strength of a Hundred and she had been forced to re-engineer her own technique to utilize the ability.

Once it was in place, however, the revised henge was more or less self-sustaining and you recieved most of the chakra you had spent upon it back- which meant she could just shunt that power right back into her chakra pool. She was fairly certain that the improvements that Naruto had made would significantly enhance her own efficiency long term, particularly as she examined it for other uses or reduced the initial chakra expenditure.

Healing jutsu that could be applied to the wounded and left to sustain themselves were the holy grail for medic nin that weren't Tsunade herself- this could well allow those without the Strength of a Hundred or Katsuya to heal multiple ninja at one time. She was actually excited about her calling again for the first time in... she didn't even know how long. It just gave her one more reason to succeed in this battle though. There would be no way she would have the time she required to develop these new techniques if she had to deal with the paperwork, headaches, and the old fossils on the Council.

At the moment though... well, she had kind of been running out of time and had only tested the technique once. She was sure she had it, but... well, it would play out one way or another soon enough.

"Tsunade." Her teammate's call brought her back to the fight at hand. They were standing on top of an abandoned temple they had identified as a good place to rest for the night and Jiraiya looked unusually sober. "I won't let you run away again."

"Who are you to talk about that, Jiraiya?" Tsunade's eyes flashed and her hands clenched. The Toad Sage may have been working on behalf of Konoha, but there was a reason he had taken up a position well outside the village. She glanced over at the boy who was standing on the edge of the roof and then looked back at Jiriya. She raised an eyebrow mockingly.

Glaring, he didn't respond this time, but orange bled into the skin around his eyes and Tsunade cursed at herself. Damnit. She had to provoke him. She now had no chance of winning this fight unless her trick worked- he hadn't summoned the little old toad couple, but he would have enough sage energy to end this fight almost immediately.

She had been planning on her current age, that is the age she normally looked for this, but perhaps a little younger might be better. It wasn't quite what she had prepped, but that shouldn't matter. It was a minor modification, easily done on the fly. Looking over at Shizune, she nodded and prepared herself.

The young lady stepped forward and said, "Ready? Begin!" Chopping her hand down to mark the second word at the same time she said it.

Tsunade was moving as soon as the '-in' sounded and almost crowed in triumph as she got it off before Jiraiya had a chance to rocket forward with his Toad Kata. As the smoke cleared, Tsunade posed, her cheeks heating to a cherry red and readying herself to take advantage of the opening this would create.

And to be fair, Jiraiya did stop before he even moved, his eyes bugging out. She was slightly concerned when he started snickering though and she dropped her pretenses completely when he started laughing out loud. When Naruto clapped his hands to his nose, blood leaking out between his fingers, however, she took the time to look down.

She groaned. She had gone too far. She wasn't 19 like she had planned, the same age she had been when she put the man before her in the hospital. She was 13. A naked 13. But a naked 13 who was flat enough to use as an ironing board.

Glaring at the man before her, Tsunade stalked forward as he wiped his watering eyes and then started cracking up again when he saw her expression. Raising a fist, she punched the toad sage hard enough to drive him into the ground and then stomped on him several times for good measure. Spinning around to stalk off, she saw Naruto's eyes widen again and promptly turned right back around and stripped her apparently not perverted enough team mate of his vest and jacket.

Wrapping them around herself, she gave Naruto a death glare and shared some of it with Shizune for the twitching lips, then stalked off in a snit. She could fix the henge later.

She needed a damned drink.

* * *

Blinking, Tsunade frowned and glanced around the room as she woke up. She didn't remember going on a mission, but this definitely wasn't the Senju compound... Squinting against the harsh light she clutched her head and wondered if blunt trauma was responsible for both her spotty memory and splitting headache. Plus the nausea. And the dry mou...

"Oh, gods! I have a hangover!" Tsunade clutched her head as her own shout rang in her ears and she quickly swallowed in a vain attempt to stop her roiling stomach from bringing up whatever was left in it. How the hell had someone gotten her drunk! If Grandfather had slipped something in her water again, she was going to pound him. She didn't care if he was the Shodaime.

Again though, she came back to the fact that the room she was in definitely wasn't her own or even Ayako's. Not that she had stayed over there since she became a genin, but... if this was something that pervert team mate of hers had pulled off she was going to pound him into paste.

Just as she was planning to leave and find out exactly what was going on, however, the door burst open and a barechested old man burst in pointing a finger at her. "Tsunade-hime! Yesterday didn't count, we battle again- best 2 out of 3!"

Screaming, Tsunade grabbed the first thing at hand and slung it at the pervert. "Pervert! Help! I'm being att-" Blinking, the young Senju stopped yelling and rubbed her eyes. She paused and looked back, noted the missing bed, then turned and looked at the gaping hole in the wall and the splintered remains of what looked like a solid oak frame.

When she saw the old man pinned under the wreckage in the hall though, her eyes widened. She hadn't meant to kill him- she was strong, but not that strong. Sprinting over, she dropped to her knees and bit her lip, she had just started learning medical jutsu, but there was no way she was murdering some random civilian or even ninja just because he walked in on her almost naked. For one thing, that wasn't nearly enough suffering for someone like that.

Closing her eyes, she placed her hands over the old man's chest and... found herself delving for wounds that were apparently only superficial. Blinking in surprise, she realized she had already started to heal even those, the action almost instinctive in a way that was kind of scary based on how much medical ninjutsu was dependent on knowledge and precision.

The man stirred moments later and she scurried back, grabbing a stout wooden bed leg just to be safe.

Raising an eyebrow, the man looked over at her and asked, "3 out of 5?"

Tsunade just gaped.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**

So the original concept was basically what is shown here- what would happen if Tsunade decided that she had kind of been railroaded into the Hokage position and Jiraiya should take his lumps too? In the Deadlock, Jiraiya almost always beats Tsunade, so she would need a trick to actually win the fight and get out of the job. Enter Naruto and his "kage killer" Sexy no Jutsu. Originally, as I mentioned, it was actually just a solid vs illusion issue and that was why Jiraiya was so enthusiastic about Naruto's sexy no jutsu. Given the solid (no pun intended) proof that henge is always physical though, I decided I needed to introduce something else that explained why it is so effective on incredibly powerful ninja.

I ended up going with the explanation used here- basically, henge typically releases a small amount of chakra that really powerful ninja can sense. Naruto's ability actually uses some of the same concepts that are embedded into the shadow clone and essentially creates a shell around the person that completely contains the chakra for the henge by feeding it back on yourself.

Short term, it's a very powerful disguise technique. Long term though I decided it had some... consequences. Basically, the "shadow shell" that you're creating around yourself feeds your chakra back on itself and that brings with it memories (again, hearkening back to the shadow clone) you've "created". Those cycle through and reinforce, again and again and eventually you believe you are whoever you transformed into, which is almost always a version of yourself due to the restrictions on the technique. In other words, when Tsunade tied a permanent version of this technique into her Strength of a Hundred seal, she basically created a feedback loop that trapped her at age 13 and she has essentially lost all of her memories after that point. (Though not necessarily all of her skills, since those are somewhat ingrained at this point. That is pretty arbitrary admittedly though and was mainly put in place so that healing Lee/Sasuke could still occur. Probably not really necessary though, since Sasuke would eventually wake up on his own I imagine.)

And that brought me to the story that I actually wanted to tell, which was a young genin Tsunade that ends up taking Sasuke's place on Team 7 after he abandons Konoha.

I don't have a lot planned for the fic at this point, but I liked the concept because Tsunade really is an interesting character and she kind of deserves a do over after the losses she's had. I had a few things scoped out though, like a potential relationship between a young Tsunade and Naruto, with the eventual realization that she was never going to age unless she released the seal (and potentially lost herself to the original Tsunade) while he kept growing older. Some potential conflict with Hinata over the whole thing as her healer's instincts try and get her to foster a rivalry with her to try and bolster the Hyuuga's confidence.

Tsunade's hemaphobia may also be present, except that she has no idea what causes it, which makes it all the worse. Given that is cured during the fight with Orochimaru, both the cure and the cause may be suppressed unless around certain triggers (such as say, Naruto, her team mates, Shizune, etc...).


	2. Shin Tension to Lockpick

**Shin Tension to Lockpick**  
 _Chapter 1: Openings_

Panting, Ino stared at the blond boy before her with a sort of exhausted disbelief, then up at the judges and other genin on the scaffolding. She had been on the defensive from the very start of their match, and only the fact that he displayed a complete lack of caution had let her catch him in this trap. Still, this would be the- a lurch in her stomach snapped her eyes back to her opponent and they widened even further.

He was fighting back! The dead last in the class! She could feel him battering at the chakra she had snaked through the remnants of her beautiful hair. She had to finish this now. Eyes closing, she raised her hands and formed them into a triangle in the blink of an eye, throwing her consciousness forward with a cry of "Shintenshin no Jutsu!"

Vaguely proud of herself for what was probably the fastest she had ever pulled off the technique, she opened her eyes and raised her hand in a victory pose. "I win!" Moments later, however, her hand lowered and she found herself confused- she had clearly felt her technique successfully connect. The feeling of the chakra to chakra contact wasn't something that could be faked.

She wasn't in the examination room anymore, though this room was at least as large. A giant cube, the room was paneled in metal and lit with an eerie greenish-gold glow and as she took a step forward her foot splashed down into a thin layer of water that covered the floor. The most dominant feature present though, was certainly the enormous gate at the far end of the chamber- 30 foot tall at least, its bars hid a blackness that felt faintly ominous as she approached.

No, she took that back. It wasn't faintly ominous at all. This place was frightening, terrifying. She paused, perhaps 10 foot away from the giant door, the ripples from her steps slowly fading away and leaving a sense of... malice.

She didn't know what Naruto had done to his mind, but it scared her like nothing had ever in her life. She suspected she needed to get past that door to complete the shin tenshin no jutsu, but... it wasn't worth it, she'd find another way. She couldn't believe the hapless, happy boy held something so horrifying in his mind.

Her first step backwards was almost involuntary, at her second though something red and bubbling snapped out of the darkness and seized her foot. Screaming, she fell backwards into the water as a pair of enormous eyes opened beyond the darkness, glowing the same color as whatever had her foot trapped.

The sense of malice and hatred had multiplied ten-fold at the appearance and she could feel tears leaking down her cheeks as she tugged at her leg, desperately scrabbling at the ground for purchase.

"Leaving so soon, girl?" A voice rang out, a fanged maw whose smallest teeth were taller than she was opening in the strengthening red light to let out the awful sound. "Stay awhile."

"Please, no, I'm, I'm sorry, I don't... I'll leave, I'll give up, please, please let me leave." The babbling barely registered to Ino, it just spilled from her mouth and received as much notice from her captor.

"Tell me, little ninja, have you ever picked a lock? Certainly they taught you how in your piddling classes, were you paying more attention than Naruto?"

"A, a lock?" Ino felt hysterical laughter bubbling up, she was about to die to some monstrosity Naruto had created in his head and the monster wanted to talk about lockpicking. If it weren't for the fact that she was sobbing so hard she thought she would suffocate, the laughter might have actually surfaced.

"There are two items that are essential to picking a lock, the first is something to apply tension- the second, the pick. Orochimaru thoughtfully provided tension with his little seal."

Orochimaru. That name was familiar, but she couldn't recall, didn't care at the moment, unless it would let her escape. Without control of the body though, she couldn't form the seals to disengage. She was going to die here, for nothing more than a stupid chance at being chuunin.

"The second is the pick, and that was what I was missing... until you showed up, little kunoichi. You will be my pick. You will help me open the lock upon this detestable cage."

Ino screamed as the tendril of chakra latched to her ankle began pulling her forward and thought she heard footsteps in the distance, suddenly splashing through the water at speed. The sound, either herself or whoever was approaching caused the gigantic face to narrow its eyes and her progress towards the cage door was no longer a slow, terrifying crawl. She slammed into the space between the bars with enough force to daze, her scream cutting off abruptly as the tendril of chakra bloomed into a cocoon.

Her vision cut off, all she could see was pulsing red light, but it felt as if the creature was attempting to squeeze her through a tube. The pulsating pressure was beyond anything she had ever felt before, and she was sure she would have passed out immediately if she were anything more than spirit. As it was, all she could do was scream for an eternity, the sound muffled even to her own ears, until the light faded and all went black.

* * *

Naruto's eyes snapped open abruptly and he staggered as he went from a flat out run through that strange green sewer to standing still in the middle of the chuunin examination chamber. The glowing strand of chakra that had bound him to Ino had winked out and he could still hear her scream echoing through that place, though here she was just kneeling in the pose she had assumed for her jutsu.

Dashing forward, he was just in time to catch her as she crumpled to the floor. He barely registered the comment from the gecko guy as it became clear Ino had passed out. "3rd match winner, Uzumaki Naruto."

A moment later, however, Ino's sensei was beside him along with Kakashi.

The former stared at him for a long moment, then bent down to take the fallen girl from his arms. Naruto handed her over readily. He wasn't sure exactly what had happened, but the screams still echoing in his ears took a lot of the fun he had been having out of this battle.

Looking guilty, he glanced over at Kakashi and asked, "Can I follow her?"

For some reason, this prompted a glance by Kakashi up to the Hokage who appeared to give the matter some thought. Finally, he nodded almost imperceptibly and Naruto found the scenery blurring before he, Kakashi, Ino, and Ino's sensei were alone in a room.

"What did she see, Naruto?"

He blinked.

"What do you mean, Kakashi-sensei?"

"When she used her technique, what did she see in your head. What made her pass out like that?"

This caused Naruto to pause for a moment, lost. He wasn't sure what had happened after Ino threw her ability at him, but he hadn't really seen her at all. He had just found himself in that weird place with the metal corridors.

"Uhh, you mean the weird corridor place was Ino's technique?" he asked, confused. "I didn't actually see her, but... well..." He glanced over at Ino's sensei, hesitant to speak in front of the man. While he normally seemed pretty easy going when he saw him with Team 10, the air around him was kind of... ominous, a bit like when they had been fighting Zabusa. Gulping, he continued in a rush. "She screamed, so I started running towards the sound, but then I was outside again when I was almost there."

Nodding, Kakashi confirmed, "And you're sure that's all you saw or heard?"

This caused Naruto to scowl. "I wouldn't lie about something like that. She sounded really scared." His determined expression seemed to thaw the forbidding aura that Ino's sensei was putting off and the man's expression relaxed a little. That was good at least. He had been feeling like he was out in the Forest again, which reminded him... "Was that one of those genjutsu things? One of the teams used one of those against us in the forest, but it wasn't that..." He trailed off, at a loss for words to explain the difference.

"Not exactly," Kakashi said, shaking his head. "The Yamanaka can get inside someone's head in a battle. Someone didn't think to warn Ino that could be a bad idea with you." He glanced over at Ino's sensei, whose mouth compressed into a tight line, though given that there was no resumption of the killing intent Naruto had felt perhaps he was angry at himself.

He wasn't sure what that meant, so he asked. "Why would it be a bad idea with me?"

Kakashi's answer was short. "Don't worry about it, it isn't something you could have done anything about."

That was clear as mud and explained less, and Naruto pointed that out. Loudly. However, his diatribe influenced Kakashi about as much as any of his attempts at using guilt on the unrepentant ninja ever worked out. Actually anything that would influence a normal person seemed to fall flat with his sensei. He was determined to keep trying until he found something that worked though.

Unfortunately for Naruto and perhaps fortunately for Kakashi, the noise was enough to wake Ino with a moan. That in turn elicted another flash of killing intent from her sensei before he turned to the only kunoichi on his team. Her hands rose to her head and clutched at her scalp and she moaned again, this one clearly in no little pain, before her eyes snapped open.

Ino's eyes locked onto Asuma looming over her and she screamed, then lashed out with one hand curled into claws, catching her sensei in the face and leaving thin scratches on his cheek. Seconds later, however, her hand was again on her head and she squeezed her eyes shut. Her other hand reached down and felt at her throat moments later.

Naruto and Kakashi exchanged concerned glances, but Asuma was grinning despite the blood trickling down his cheek. "Can't be too badly hurt if you can still let out a bellow like that," he said. He rubbed a thumb over the 4 narrow cuts as Ino's eyes opened into mere slits and she gave him an evil looking glare. He slapped Kakashi on the back, exchanging a relieved smile with the other Jounin leader as Ino's attention wandered.

Naruto just barely caught her muttering to herself. "This did not go exactly as planned. How..."

"What didn't go as planned," he asked more loudly, generating another wince from Ino. She in turn resumed her earlier glare, but it was now directed at him. He was used to people glaring at him though, so he didn't back down and just stared right back with his typical smile.

Asuma's glare was a bit harder to ignore, but he kept it up and Ino finally cracked. "Ah, plan?" Naruto glanced back and noticed that Kakashi was paying quite close attention to this as well. The other blonde's attention was more on his sensei than it was on him honestly. "Yes, it was the... fight. I wasn't expecting this- or rather I was expecting that to work better."

"Something happened then?" That was Kakashi this time and Asuma's death glare transferred to the jounin, though it got only a crinkled eye as the masked ninja presumably smiled at him. He still seemed to expect an answer though.

Naruto wondered why, when it seemed like Ino was okay to him, but his sensei just kept smiling at the younger girl who kind of returned it, in a halfway sort of sickly way. Maybe she was sick, he felt that way sometimes when he got hit on the head.

Ino finally glanced back at Asuma, then sighed when he gave a grudging nod. "I, uh, hit something- a barrier." She nodded, almost to herself and Kakashi raised an eyebrow.

"A barrier?" She nodded again more decisively this time and Kakashi added mildly. "Naruto said he heard a scream."

Ino blinked, glancing over at Naruto and narrowing her eyes, then she said, "It was... uh, painful. When I touched it that is, I screamed and, yes, I think I fell unconscious." She paused when Kakashi just kept smiling at her with his crinkled eye and hastened to add one last comment. "That's all I remember."

Naruto had thought what he heard sounded more scared than pained, but then he wasn't really an expert on different types of girl screams. And if he was in a lot of pain, he supposed he might be scared too. Not that he was a scaredy cat or anything.

The two jounin in the room were exchanging veiled looks and Asuma finally rested a hand on Ino's shoulder, which made her jump. "I think we've heard enough, we'll let you rest, Ino. I'm sure Shikamaru and Kiba will be down as soon as they're done with their matches."

Ino gave another one of those sickly smiles and thanked her sensei, but then gave Naruto a startled look when he asked, "Want me to get you a bucket?"

"What? Why would I need a bucket?"

Naruto mimed throwing up into an imaginary one, trying to be all sensitive and not actually say it since Ino was a girl. All this got him was a blank stare from the Yamanaka and a sigh from Kakashi though. As his sensei and Asuma each grabbed an arm and started dragging him away, he called back, "Hope you feel better soon, Ino!"

* * *

As the three left the room, Kurama's head flopped back against the pillow, then a rather sardonic smile crept onto her face. One hand rose up and she looked at it curiously, then felt at her face

She had done it, she was free of the cursed prison the Yondaime had thrown her into. One more secure than even the First Hokage and his Uzumaki bitch of a wife had managed to put together. Her laughter rang out in the room loudly and she grabbed a pillow to muffle it, since she was feeling too gleeful to actually stop it outright. No need to call that Jounin back here.

She was more than a bit giddy, but she needed to get out of this village before this body popped like an over-ripe tomato. There was no way it could contain her power for long and she didn't dare... release...

Her thoughts slowing, she noticed that she didn't feel any pressure from keeping her chakra contained in such a small vessel without a seal. She should have felt bloated with power. It should have been painful; skin crackling, muscles disintegrating, and organs liquifying. Instead she felt... a headache. It was admittedly the worst headache she had ever had, but that wasn't difficult given that a body composed entirely of chakra had no nerves to register pain.

Relaxing the tight hold she had on her power, she felt... nothing really. Wisps that would take a thousand years to build back into something approaching even Shukaku's strength were sucked away into the chakra pathways of this body. Much of the child's chakra still remained, but her own was simply gone.

It was perhaps best that she was already lying down as the magnitude of that thought struck her, for she could almost feel the blood draining from her face as she realized what had happened. She had escaped the prison, but her power had been left behind. Vertigo seized her and she moaned into the pillow still clutched to her face to muffle her earlier laughter.

Had she just crippled herself further? The damned Fourth had stolen half of her power and sealed it away permanently, now the rest... Rage turned her vision red, then white, then it began to fade into black before her hands fell away from the iron grip she had on the pillow, no longer responding to her commands. Moments later, her body seized the opportunity to take deep, gulping breaths and she felt the darkness recede.

Oh, right. Air. She had forgotten that was necessary.

This... was going to be more difficult than she had imagined.

* * *

 **Author's Notes:**  
This one would ultimately be about the Kyuubi attempting to get its power back from Naruto in any manner possible. Without knowing for sure how the Death God's seal would work in the case of Naruto's death, killing him is probably a last resort. So instead, it would be attempting to take advantage of the fact that it knows how desperately lonely and needy Naruto is to get close to him. All while trying keep the fact that it has possessed Ino from her parents, team mates, and friends and dealing with living in a highly hormonal teenage girl's body.

On the flip side, Ino is now trapped inside Naruto's seal with extremely limited understanding of how to control the Kyuubi's chakra. She is pretty much limited to trying to send Naruto messages whenever he uses it until she can somehow get him to come into his mind. By which point Kurama in Ino's body may well have gained his trust and she would need to figure out how to convince him.

Long term, Naruto probably has significantly better control over the Kyuubi's chakra from early on without Kurama fighting him and I could eventually see fun things happening like throwing Kyuubi chakra at an enemy to let Ino possess them- at least until the corrosive chakra burns up their bodies. It probably trivializes some of the encounters during the Chunin Exam, but I'm more interested in the interactions between Ino, Kurama, and Naruto.


End file.
